I received an e-mail from a guy that was asking me if it is true that Push-Ups are hard on the shoulder joints.

The answer is NO! Far from it. If you perform Push-Ups the way I advocate in Living Strength: Fountain of Youth Exercise System you will protect your shoulders from injury and not cause it.

I was reminded of this last Thursday when having lunch with Tim Kain and Mike Terry.

During lunch Tim was telling Mike about how Living Strength Push-Ups healed his shoulders. He was extending both arms above his head in demonstration like it was nothing at all. But get this, there WAS a time when Tim was so banged up from the weights that he literally could not raise his hands above his shoulders without experiencing extreme pain just as Jack King had once experienced but that was then and this is now.

Here's the deal. Push-Ups when properly performed keep the muscles infused with highly Oxygenated blood while lubricating the joint capsule. In other words, if you want to protect your shoulders from injury start doing Living Strength Push-Ups (Atlas III's) in high volume. When you get to the point that you can perform sets of 30 or more without difficulty and do them multiple times each day, YOU WILL PROTECT from injury and not cause it. In the process you will feel your shoulders healing.

Yes, the surgeon told me he did not want to operate because I was so "old" (56-57). He just told me not to raise my right arm over shoulder level.
I started doing Atlas llls and after a month I started feeling so much better that I thought it was just my imagination. I didn't tell a soul for over 4 months just in case.
At this stage I am afraid to not do some Atlas llls daily. I much prefer Atlas lls.

I should have been clear and stated that although I believe Atlas III's are the ultimate shoulder friendly Push-Up and can go a long way toward healing your shoulders, that nonetheless, there may be exceptions. What do I mean by that? I mean there is a point at which the shoulders are so injured that performing Atlas III's may not be an option.

Example: Jack King told me that when he first decided to try Push-Ups it was because he could not perform pressing movements of any kind with weights because he felt as though he had 'ground glass' in each of his shoulder joints and his wrists throbbed with pain. Needless to say, it was excruciatingly painful and weights were out as a training medium. SO WHAT WAS HE TO DO? There weren't many options. That's when he decided to give push-ups a try.

Jack first tried standard Push-Ups on the floor but the angle caused extreme pain and irritation. Then on a whim (totally out of the blue) he decided to see if elevating his feet made a difference. On the very first set It made a huge difference to have his feet elevated 16" above his hands on an exercise bench with his hands on the floor holding on to a wooden block in each hand to take the pressure off of his severely injured wrists. At first his shoulders still hurt but the pain was tolerable pain and did not feel like ground glass in his shoulder joints. Then over the course of weeks it dawned on him that he was feeling no pain at all. He then began working up to High Volume sets of 100 or more reps for 10 to 15 sets and often achieving 1,500 reps in a workout. Once, just to do it he completed 2,000 reps in 15 sets. He was 61, when he did that just days prior to winning The Masters Mr America in 1997. At the time Jack won The Masters Mr America he stood 5'10" and weighed exactly 160 'ripped to the bone' pounds. He realized that he had peaked out in terms of development with Push-Ups although he had not ever tried using a weight vest. At any rate he told me that the 5 years of Push-Ups had so healed his shoulders that he decided to go back to the weights. To his surprise his first set with 180 pounds on the bench felt light even though he had not done a bench press in years. So with his newly healed shoulders he went back to his first love "weights" with a vengeance. Within 6 months his shoulder joints felt like they were filled with ground glass and he could no longer train with weights. Unfortunately, this time his shoulders were so badly beat up that he could no longer perform the push-up at any angle.

Did Jack regret going back to the weights? I asked him that and he told me that the only thing he deeply regretted was that he could not lift heavy weights long term without injury. He literally told me that even though he knew he could have built a great physique without using weights, that if he had it to do all over again, that he would, because back in the day it was gratifying beyond anything one can possibly imagine to be one of the strongest men on earth in his own weight class.

So here's my bottom line: Up to a point, I believe that Atlas III Push-Ups may be among the best and most therapeutic exercises one could possibly do for his shoulders--NOTE: I said up to a point and that point will vary from man to man.